By Dorothy Rowley
AFRO Staff Writer
Newsweek blogger Katie Connolly retracted a statement comparing D.C.'s racial divisions to apartheid. (Courtesy Photo/newsweek.com)
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(November 4, 2009) - At-large Councilmember Kwame Brown has expressed gratitude to a Newsweek.com blogger over a recent retraction regarding apartheid in the District of Columbia.
According to the councilman, Katie Connolly quickly retracted her statement in her Oct. 20 blog posting on the publication’s Web site about race, class and the city’s dwindling marriage rate, after he received feedback from District residents who were put off by the comments.
The article was titled, “Why So Few D.C. Residents Are Married.”
Connolly’s original statement read: “Anyone who’s lived in D.C. is aware of the city’s dirty secret: it essentially operates under an unwritten form of apartheid that the wealthy northwest rarely engages with the swathe of low income people who share their city.”
After the complaints, she amended the passage to: “Anyone who’s lived in D.C. is aware of the city’s dirty secret that the wealthy northwest rarely engages with the swathe of low income people who share their city.”
“I want to thank Ms. Connolly for respecting District residents and for posting a heartfelt retraction,” Brown said in a press statement.
He said that as an elected official, he’d been appalled that a reporter at Newsweek would compare the District’s system of government to apartheid.
“The article simplified the complex issue of marriage by pitting DC residents against each other and race against race,” Brown said. “Our only remaining form of oppression comes not from each other but from our lack of full voting representation in Congress. Anyone who’s lived in DC should be aware of that dirty little secret.”
Connolly conceded that she had apparently ticked off people with her reference to apartheid.
“I agree it was a poor choice of words, which unfairly exaggerated the social and class issues we have in DC,” Connolly wrote in an explanation to Brown.
“I've reworded that sentence to more accurately reflect my intention, which was to highlight the fact that there are two distinct class worlds in DC: an affluent group that clusters in the northwest and a much poorer community whose work helps enable the higher living standards of the richer residents.”